"Action" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bitter sense of his own wrongdoing, expiated long since by suffering, but never forgiven, and to make him happy with even the briefest news of her life in the new world to which she had gone away. 'In writing one word to me,' so Sanin ended his letter, 'you will be doing a good action worthy of your noble soul, and I shall thank you to my last breath. I am stopping here at the White Swan (he underlined those words) and shall wait, wait till spring, ...
— The Torrents of Spring • Ivan Turgenev
... had a mind to throw myself into the sea and make an end of my troubles forever. But the thought came to me that such an action would not be noble, so I hid my head in my mantle and lay down in the bottom of the ship while the violent winds and towering waves drove us back to the island we had left. We landed there again, and, having partaken of some food and wine, I sought ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... monster seemed bent on revenge, and in another instant would be upon us. We then saw our danger, and quicker than a flash of light, thought and action came. The next moment the gigantic saurian was made to struggle on his back with a bullet in his brain. It had entered his right eye, and had been aimed so nicely as ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... impulsive in every thought and action, sprang to the ground as Zoroaster finished speaking, and coming to him, took both his hands and kissed him on ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... Wordie secured several large lumps of biotite granite. While the 'Endurance' was being held slow ahead against the berg a loud crack was heard, and the geologist had to scramble aboard at once. The bands on this berg were particularly well defined; they were due to morainic action in the parent glacier. Later in the day the easterly wind increased to a gale. Fragments of floe drifted past at about two knots, and the pack to leeward began to break up fast. A low berg of shallow draught drove down into the grinding pack and, smashing against two larger stranded ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... Henry was in the prow, sitting at ease with his rifle across his knees. The boat was amid a tall growth of canes, the stalks and blades rising a full ten feet above their heads, and hiding them completely. Henry had been watching the surface of the river, but at last the action grew wholly mechanical. Had anything appeared there he would have seen it, but his thoughts were elsewhere. His whole life, since he had arrived, a boy of fifteen, in the Kentucky wilderness, was passing before him in a series of pictures, vivid and wonderful, standing out ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the great host of warriors is at rest, the chiefs are in consultation, counting up their resources, preparing the plan of battle—above all, selecting the generalissimo; and that when these arrangements are completed and the time of action draws near the trumpets will give forth no uncertain sound, banners emblazoned with the most heart-stirring devices will be advanced, and we shall fall into line according as our temperaments and sympathies incline us to join with those who are "anxious to preserve" or with those who are "eager ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... the meanest hearts. But though the manners of aristocracy did not constitute virtue, they sometimes embellish virtue itself. It was no ordinary sight to see a numerous and powerful class of men, whose every outward action seemed constantly to be dictated by a natural elevation of thought and feeling, by delicacy and regularity of taste, and by urbanity of manners. Those manners threw a pleasing illusory charm over human nature; and though the picture was often a false one, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... dignity, and to act worthy of his supreme station: ou prepei Neroni, cried he, ou prepeu nphein dei en tois toidtois ale, eleire seauton— i.e. "Fie, fie, then Nero! such a season calls for perfect self- possession. Up, then, and rouse thyself to action." ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the Tarentini, on the side of the Carthaginians, that the Romans had made a treaty of friendship with Hiero. But these they merely put forward as excuses, as those are inclined to do who in reality are desirous of advancing their own interests but pause before a reputation for such action. The truth is different. As a matter of fact, the Carthaginians, who had long been powerful, and the Romans, who were now growing rapidly, kept viewing each other with jealousy; and they were incited to war partly ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... 3. Action, we are assured, keeps the soul in constant health; but idleness corrupts and rusts the mind; for a man of great abilities may by negligence and idleness become so mean and despicable as to be an incumbrance ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... possible is, in the event of a long war with any great maritime power, for ends which only affected one particular portion of the States; in which case the irresistible influence of the all mighty dollar might come into powerful action. The wealth of America is her commerce; whatever checks that, checks the pulsations of her vitality; and unless her honour was thoroughly compromised in the struggle, neither North nor South would be disposed to prolong a ruinous ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... dat," repeated Turner in his deep, gutteral voice. "Let's drink to de health of all moonshiners and to de defeat an' death of all revenue spies. Dat's my holt (hold)." Suiting the action to the words, he raised a stone jug nearly full of spirits to his lips and taking a long draught, handed it to the next, and so it went the rounds. The liquor, which would have made an ordinary drinker intoxicated in a few minutes, had no perceptible effect upon these men, who scarcely ever ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... marchaunt, whiche is both wyse and subtyle, wolde truste this ideot, that can speke neuer a redy worde, of xl peny worth of ware? and so with suche reasons he perswaded the Justyce to caste the marchaunt in his owne action. So whan the sentence was gyuen, the man of lawe drewe the dettour asyde, and said: Lo, howe sayst thou nowe? Haue not I done well for the? Thou arte clere quitte of the dette that was demanded of the: wherfore giue me my money, and God be with ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... annoyed by Coppin's action, although he claimed no authority over the rough fellow. "I was just about to say that it were as well that we landed, taking our arms with us and standing on our guard, for ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... state from intense heat (we could not expect to find any remains of plants or animals there, and none have been found), and of the "water-made rocks," which have been gradually accumulated by the action of water in wearing down the land. These rocks lie in layers, and fossil shells, plants, and bones of animals have been found in them, as we have ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... two parts, "Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit," and "Euphues and his England," the scene of the first lying in Naples) is a kind of love story; the action, however, being next to nothing, and subordinated to an infinite amount of moral and courtly discourse. Oddly enough, the unfavourable sentence of Hallam, that it is "a very dull story," and the favourable sentence of Kingsley, that it is "a brave, righteous, and pious book," are both quite ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... to her head a moment, and drew a long breath. There was a certain piteousness in the action, a consciousness of youth ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... care as a Roman and a man to perform whatsoever it is that thou art about, with true and unfeigned gravity, natural affection, freedom and justice: and as for all other cares, and imaginations, how thou mayest ease thy mind of them. Which thou shalt do; if thou shalt go about every action as thy last action, free from all vanity, all passionate and wilful aberration from reason, and from all hypocrisy, and self-love, and dislike of those things, which by the fates or appointment of God have happened unto thee. Thou seest that those things, ...
— Meditations • Marcus Aurelius
... {27} The real effect, therefore, of the accusations made against him here, is simply to warn every one that they should refuse to give him anything, since he is to pay the penalty for his very intentions, not to speak of any action that he may have taken or any success that he may have achieved. That is the only meaning of the cry that 'he is preparing a blockade', or 'he is surrendering[n] the Hellenes'. Do any of his critics care ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... young lawyer, to the seasoned man who controls the politics of the country through his unerring manipulation of both party machines; the maker of Presidents, the master of Congress, the terror of the financial world. The methods by which he achieves these results make up the action of the story; they are such as we are all familiar with, except, perhaps, in the combination which Mr. ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... the proceedings did not take long. The summing up was but a repetition of the same points, as viewed from opposite sides, a brief synopsis of the action of the play, dry, dull, and dignified. It had all been managed very satisfactorily all round; both the advocates had pointed out what the court should consider, and the presiding justice found ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... of the Spaniards, when the news of the sack of Panama reached Spain, rose to a white heat. "It is impossible for me to paint to your Lordship," wrote Godolphin to Lord Arlington, "the face of Madrid upon the news of this action ... nor to what degree of indignation the queen and ministers of State, the particular councils and all sorts of people here, have taken it to heart."[330] It seems that the ambassador or the Spanish consul in ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... with the action, he flung the warrant into the fire with one hand, and fixed the other, with a stern and irresistible grip, on the breast of the attorney, who, totally unable to contend with him, in either personal strength or mental energy, trembled like a chicken in the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... to have her returned to him. I've been figuring from your books. Your property isn't worth over a hundred thousand dollars as it stands on hoof today. I'm here to offer you five times that for it. In other words, Graham is willing to forfeit all action he might have personally against you for stealing his wife, and in place of that will pay you five hundred thousand dollars for the privilege of having his honeymoon here, and making of this place a country estate ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... cases to smooth off the edges with a dry brush. The cyanide of potassium applied in the same way, but with very great care, will remove the black spots. Before it appears to have quite accomplished its object, a negative should be immersed in water, as its action is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 215, December 10, 1853 • Various
... poker alone, severely alone. He had sought every opportunity for field service; had shown indomitable push, pluck, and skill in pursuit of Apaches and cool courage in action. He had been able to send even more than was needed, or that he had hoped, to his sister's guardian, and was proud and happy in the consciousness of a duty well done. There were no young girls in the scattered garrisons of those days, no feminine attractions to unsettle ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... ceased to interfere. Now, he suspected China to be the victim of a successful plot. His wife had made a bold move, and without his sanction. A more fiery man, yielding to indignation and to a sense of the injustice wrought, would have taken China home again, saying to his wife both by word and action, that he was still master in his own house, and of his own servants. But Duncan Lisle knew that life for China at the house was over. She had been long enough suffering incessant martyrdom under the heavy sway of the new mistress. Yes, it would be better for her to go away. He regarded ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... Miss Howes' grasp and started for the front hall. The action was a braver one than her cousin realized. If there was one thing on earth that Thankful Barnes did not wish to do at that moment, it was to go nearer the stairs ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln
... gallant youth of Britain, Gather to your country's call, On your hearts her name is written, Rise to help her, one and all! Cast away each feud and faction, Brood not over wrong nor ill, Rouse your virtues into action, For we love our country still, Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia! Raise that thrilling shout once more, Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia! Conqueror ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... them. The galleys arrived; and the next day they were able to start again in company. Meanwhile, a conspiracy was formed by the Chinese galleymen to murder all the Spaniards. Assuming these Chinese to be volunteers, their action would appear to be extremely vile. If, however, as is most probable, they were pressed into this military service to foreigners, it seems quite natural, that being forced to bloodshed without alternative, they should first fight for their own liberty, seeing that they had come ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... action may unfortunately be illustrated in other ways. During the weeks when all the daily papers were full of the details of a notorious murder trial in New York and all the hideous events which preceded the crime, one evening ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... forward to the edge of the porch, still munching on a honey-dipped piece of corn bread, and glanced up at the sky. That was a queer bird; he'd never seen a bird with a wing action like that. Then he realized that the object was not a ...
— The Return • H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... as he lay on a couch grasping his son's hand, hurriedly explained his action when he had dashed into the flood, for he had caught sight of Drinkwater for a moment, and seen that he was in peril of his life, but it was only to nearly lose his own, for he had been caught between two heavy beams sailing ...
— Will of the Mill • George Manville Fenn
... there is occasion for real distress, but often on the most trivial pretexts. A few days later, in all probability, that same woman would have been ready to marry another man. There is no evidence of altruistic action—action for another's benefit—in any of these incidents, and altruism is the only test of genuine affection as distinguished from mere liking, attachment, and fondness, which, as was explained in the chapter on Affection, are the products of selfishness, more or less disguised. ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... said he: "whom I hate I slay. However, as you will. This voyage will soon be over; but if you choose, while it lasts, to keep the forecastle deck clean, none shall interfere with you; and perchance, when we get into action, you may find it an honourable ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... merriment. With these might have been noticed the elegant form of Lord Wilton, on his roan, shaded again by a round-shouldered knave from Manchester, with ungloved hands and snub nose, who had "potted the crack" for his special line of action. His yeoman Grace of Limbs, fresh and hearty as a summer gale, mounted on his Blue-eyed Maid, loomed in stalwart manhood by the side of some pallid greek or city trader, having a word of greeting and jollity for all ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... semi-independence existed, while Hungary preferred [Sidenote: The family compact, 1606.] the Turk to the emperor. In both kingdoms Rudolph had failed to assert his sovereign power except in fitful attempts to extirpate heresy. With anarchy prevalent within the Austrian dominions some action became necessary. Accordingly in 1606 the archdukes made a compact agreeing to acknowledge the archduke Matthias as head of the family. This arrangement proved far from successful. Matthias, who was emperor from 1612 to 1619, proved unable to restore order, and when he died Bohemia ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... in one of the bastions of a fort looking over the sea. There were neither guards nor sentinels there. The guns stood on their carriages, looking clean and ready for action, but this was not the result of care and attention, but simply because in so dry a climate iron rusts but little. A close examination would have shown that the wooden carriages on which they stood were so cracked ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... arriving at a conclusion regarding the economic forces. These factors might, for example, be determined by the amount of unemployment or the extent of poverty in a community as registered by the prosperity. These facts are important, but may or may not account wholly for individual action. Except in a few localities of the South there was no actual misery and starvation. Nor is it evident that those who left would have perished from want had they remained. Discontent became more manifest as comparisons were made between the existing state of things at home and a much better ...
— Negro Migration during the War • Emmett J. Scott
... choir-master, Palestrina (1526-1594 A.D.), was the first of the great composers. He gave music its fitting place in worship by composing melodious hymns and masses still sung in Roman Catholic churches. The oratorio, a religious drama set to music but without action, scenery, or costume, had its beginning at this time. The opera, however, was little developed ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... prolong itself through the almost monastic quiet of the quarter which led thither. On the way, he succeeded in wresting from her the confession that, if it were possible to ascertain in advance that her husband's family would not oppose her action, she might decide to apply for a divorce. Short of a positive assurance on this point, she made it clear that she would never move in the matter; there must be no scandal, no retentissement, nothing which her boy, necessarily brought up in the French tradition of scrupulously ...
— Madame de Treymes • Edith Wharton
... virtues whereof the heroes and heroines of romance are so prolific. Usually nothing occurs to disillusion us about ourselves. But now and then fate, in unusually brutal ironic mood, forces us to see the real reason why we did this or that virtuous, self-sacrificing action, or blossomed forth in this or that nobility of character. Mildred was destined now to suffer one of these savage blows of disillusionment about self that thrust us down from the exalted moral heights where ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips
... determined nem. con. that a pease-barrel should be manufactured into a big drum, that two ramrods should be metamorphosed into triangles, that the two bassoons and the hautboy taken in the French frigate should be brought into action without loss of time, that the marine and ship's fifer, with the marine drummer, should be drilled with the others, under the direction of the sergeant, in the captain's cabin twice a day, and a horrible confusion ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... wherein all the proofs of the suit were piled up in Ciceronian periphrases, flanked with quotations from Plautus, his favorite comic author. We regret that we are not able to offer to our readers this remarkable piece. The orator pronounced it with marvellous action. Before he had finished the exordium, the perspiration was starting from his brow, and his ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... chair before, but he was a good lawyer, familiar with national and general history and awake to all contemporary doings, questions, and interests south, west, east, and abroad. He was also more a man of action and affairs than any of his predecessors. He had, in a very high degree, alertness, energy, courage, initiative, dispatch. Physically as well as mentally vigorous, he read much, heard all who could usefully inform him, apprehended easily, decided quickly, ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... the mad thing would leap; but just as the quiver swept over the crouching body, Heloise gathered all her strength into one action of desperate terror. ...
— Black Spirits and White - A Book of Ghost Stories • Ralph Adams Cram
... agitation among the men, were they to be aware that their presence was not really required for the defence of the bridge. After a short stay in camp he again went down into the town, with the idea that he was more likely to hit upon some plan of action there than he would be in ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... train of Bodmer came Haller, like him a Swiss; then suddenly Klopstock appeared. The Messiah of Klopstock is an epic poem; it is the history of Jesus Christ from Cana to the Resurrection, with a crowd of episodes dexterously attached to the action. The profound religious sentiment, the grandeur of the setting, the beauty of the scenes, the purity and nobility of the sermon, the Biblical colour so skilfully spread over the whole composition, cause this vast poem, which was perhaps unduly praised on its first appearance, to be one of the ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... startling even Rome with the uproar of his debauches—no sooner was Vespasian gone than presto! the queen went home, the dancers disappeared, the debauches ceased, and a ruler appeared who declared he had lost a day that a good action had not marked; a ruler who could announce that no one should leave his ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... inducement to get up but the sense of duty, that he may have more abundantly to give to him who needeth, and the guinea dedications and speeches from the rich, would pass out together as no longer needed; for one action of real dedication would contain more argument than a thousand speeches about it, from those who are laving in all the luxuries of life, and yield more help than a thousand guineas, and there would be left for the poorer, and the poorest would bring ...
— Christian Devotedness • Anthony Norris Groves
... teach Bill too," she added with native tact. But Mrs. Wade, ill at ease in her own parlor, caught the afterthought quality of Rose's tone. There was no question but that it was for Martin she sparkled, sweet and spontaneous as she was. Decidedly, the time had come when definite action should ...
— Dust • Mr. and Mrs. Haldeman-Julius
... those to which we now ask the assent of the House of Commons. This may be said in a different form of Austria. All this movement which is going on throughout Europe, and which is so pregnant with good, will be powerfully stimulated by our action in this country, and that stimulus will not only facilitate our work by removing the argument which causes hon. gentlemen opposite anxiety, but it will also, I think, redound to the credit of this country that it took a leading and prominent position in what ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... the least idea that there was anything to be ashamed of in her action; on the contrary, she was full of pride in her own cleverness. But it was impossible to allow such an occasion to pass, even on Christmas evening, when discipline is necessarily relaxed. Mrs Trevor's face was an eloquent ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... are organised after the continental model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election of officers ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... soft, and the fragrance of the fields fills it like a perfume. The noises of the day and of the creatures that go about by day cease, and the noises of the night and of the creatures that haunt the night begin. The bat swoops and circles in the maddest action, but without a sound. The eye sees him, but the ear hears nothing. The whippoorwill begins his plaintive cry, and one ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... to the rest Of the wide world, from mouth to mouth was blown, Knights out of number undertook the quest, From neighbouring parts and distant; but unknown To all remained the forest which possessed The spring wherein the virtuous shield was thrown: For she who told the action, would not say Where was the well, nor ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... thrown down: if you pardon this insult, you will raise yourself others, not of marble or brass, which time destroys, but such as will exist eternally in the hearts of all those who will hear of this action. Your predecessor, Constantine the Great, when importuned by his courtiers to exert his vengeance on some seditious people that had disfigured his statues by throwing stones at them, did nothing more than stroke his face with his hand, and told them, smiling, that he did not feel himself hurt. This ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... over the whole civilised world by the death of Lord Byron in 1823, among the people whom he had come to free, probably served the Greek cause better than all that Byron could have achieved had his life been prolonged. In France and England, where public opinion had great influence on the action of the Government, as well as in Germany, where it had none whatever, societies were formed for assisting the Greeks with arms, stores, and money. The first proposal, however, for a joint intervention in favour of Greece came from St. Petersburg. ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... chestnut hair and violet eyes, Lady Margot fell far short of beauty; but, none the less, the eye dwelt upon her in fascinated attention, so graceful was the pose of the small, stag-like head, so finely cut the curve of chin and cheek; while the smallest action, as of lifting a cup to her lips, became a ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... I; "but give me leave to tell you, that ye'll may be find it liker a hanging-match than a musical matter. Are you not aware that I could hand you over to the sheriff, on two special indictments? In the first place, for an action of assault and batterification, in cuffing me, an elder of our kirk, with a sticked killing-coat, in my own shop; and, in the second place, as a swindler, imposing on his Majesty's loyal subjects, taking the coin of the realm on false pretences, and palming ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... of the receiver being replaced on its rest at the other end of the wire. Somehow, the sound conveyed a new determination on Forbes's part. He had his back to the wall. No matter what view the law took of his action subsequently, he would protect his dear ones at ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... chain and windlass, the grinding and squeaking of the straining timbers and the shouts of the men—the menacing thunder of that moving cataract a few miles away. While he paced the embankments, studying the set of the currents, observing the form and action of the eddies or receiving the hourly reports from the river gauge at Rubio City, and held consultation with his assistants, he often turned his head involuntarily to look anxiously away in the direction of ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... by loss of reason. Shell shock often produces dementia of varying degrees—some lasting, some fleeting. I'm afraid your uncle went out of his mind and, in a moment of madness, may have done a dreadful thing. Then he set out, while he was still insane, to cover up his action. So far as we can judge, he took away his victim and meant apparently to throw him into the sea. I feel only too sure that your husband has lost his life, Mrs. Pendean. You must be prepared to accept ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... another giant soil-former. If you would understand its action, observe some usually sparkling stream just after a washing rain. The clear waters are discolored by mud washed in from the surrounding hills. As though disliking their muddy burden, the waters strive to throw it off. Here, as low ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett
... best judges of the proper size of claims, and were abundantly able to make their own laws as they had done under the present mining customs, and their laws had always been respected, making any further legislative action unnecessary. ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... eagerly up from one face to the other, then, seeing Davy, came to him and stood against him, still looking around with that expression of melancholy on his face that a hound dog always wears except when he is in action. ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... proved to be an incredibly old couple, brown and withered and gray of locks, shrunken in stature, slow and feeble in action, and even rather timid themselves in their greetings. They made much of this grandchild, but they were diffident. Slowly it came to his knowledge that he was set up as a creature to adore. He enjoyed a blissful new sensation of being deferred ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... himself face to face with the problem of what to do with the surrendered Wangs. He might keep them prisoners—that would be difficult; or he might summarily behead them—and that would be easy. The latter action must certainly be open to the ugly suspicion of treachery, but he had as his excuse that the city was under martial law, and that prompt and vigorous measures might be the means of saving more bloodshed in the end. Accordingly ...
— Sir Robert Hart - The Romance of a Great Career, 2nd Edition • Juliet Bredon
... plans regarding them? Certainly not our flesh and bones. A man whose leg has been amputated is able to think just the same. Therefore it is obvious that there is something in us which receives impressions and forms ideas, that reasons upon facts and determines upon courses of action and carries them out, which is not the physical body. This is the real "I Myself." This is the Person we are really concerned with; and it is the betterment of this "I Myself" that makes it worth while to enquire what our Thought has to do ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... be man-handled through the sand up to our camp about a mile away. And the sun blazed, and the flies pestered and stung and buzzed and fought with each other for the drops of sweat streaming down your face. How long should we be here? When were we going into action?... The suspense was brain-racking. The diarrhoea increased: everyone went down with it. Some got the ague shivers and some a touch ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... officers killed and seventy wounded, itself a striking evidence of the prompt response to Prescott's orders before the action began. Of rank and file, two hundred and seven were killed and seven hundred and fifty-eight were wounded. Total, ten hundred ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... happened or no I should have spoken to you on this matter before we separated. I know—you all know—to what Mr. Barron refers—that he is speaking of the anonymous letters concerning myself and others which have been circulated in this neighbourhood. He calls upon me, I understand, to take legal action with regard both to them and to the reports which he has himself circulated, by word of mouth, and probably by letter. Now I want you plainly to understand"—he bent forward, his hands on the table before him, ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... did not possess. I have entirely failed with my picture of Miss Emily if the word violence can be associated with her in any way. Miss Emily was a temple, clean swept, cold, and empty. She never acted on impulse. Every action, almost every word, seemed the result of thought ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... who were constrained by the law, many others desired to aid the popular Sisters of St. Clare and thereby earn a reward from God. A brewer had furnished his powerful stallions to convey to the scene of action, with their tools, the eight masons whose duty it was to use their skill in extinguishing the flames. All sorts of people—men and women—followed, yelling and shrieking, to seek their own profit during ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... gentleman of whom I spoke went down to Spithead to see them off. Her Majesty, in the royal yacht, Fairy, suddenly appeared. Then the flagship hauled home every rope by the silent 'all-at-once' action of one hundred men. Immediately the rigging of the ships was black with sailors, but there was not a sound heard except an occasional command—sharp, short and imperative—or the shrill order of the boatswain's whistle. The next moment, the Queen's yacht ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... sentiments prove to be the most cruel weapons which man can employ against his fellow man. The genius of Schiller, lucid as it was comprehensive, seems to have revealed all the phenomena which certain ideas bring to light in the human organization by their keen and penetrating action. A man may be put to death by a thought. Such is the moral of those heartrending scenes, when in The Brigands the poet shows a young man, with the aid of certain ideas, making such powerful assaults on the heart of an old man, that he ends by causing the latter's death. The time is ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... packing up for a summer's work on the coast when he received Vandervelde's letter, advising him that Mrs. Champneys had instituted proceedings to have her marriage annulled. The attorney added that by this action on Anne's part the entire Champneys estate reverted to him, Peter Champneys, with the exception of fifty thousand dollars especially allotted to Anne by Chadwick Champneys's will. Vandervelde took it for granted there would be no opposition from Peter. He hoped his client ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... Dismemberment, and then listening to the reports on the dismantled Cadillacs. It was nice, peaceful, unimportant work, but there just wasn't anything else to do. FBI work was ninety-five per cent marking time, anyway. Malone felt grateful that there was any action at all ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Further, the gift of understanding enlightens the mind in matters which surpass natural reason. Now human activities, with which the practical intellect is concerned, do not surpass natural reason, which is the directing principle in matters of action, as was made clear above (I-II, Q. 58, A. 2; I-II, Q. 71, A. 6). Therefore the gift ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... SEIF, secretary general] (a broad alliance of opposition groups and individuals including: Committee for Revival of Civil Society [Michel KILO, Riyad SEIF], Communist Action Party [Fateh JAMOUS], Kurdish Democratic Alliance, Kurdish Democratic Front, Liberal Nationalists' Movement, National Democratic Front, National Democratic Rally, and Syrian Human Rights Society or HRAS [Fawed FAWUZ]); National ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... people ran the hazard by that clandestine trade not only of carrying the contagion into their own country, but also of infecting the nations to whom they traded with those goods; which, considering how many lives might be lost in consequence of such an action, must be a trade that no men of conscience could suffer themselves ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... their guns, their officers snipping the grasses with their swords; the cuirassiers hidden in the bulk of the native cavalry; artillerymen seated carelessly on the caissons, and the gunners smoking and leaning against the guns. All action was gone, as if by magic; nothing but a strange tableau remained! Moreover, a troop of native cavalry, which, for no apparent reason, had not joined the main body, had closed in on the general staff. Appalled by a sudden thought, Maurice ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... Isaid, "through which language is settled and unsettled combines in one the two opposite elements of necessity and free will. Though the individual seems to be the prime agent in producing new words and new grammatical forms, he is so only after his individuality has been merged in the common action of the family, tribe, or nation to which he belongs. He can do nothing by himself, and the first impulse to a new formation in language, though given by an individual, is mostly, if not always, given without premeditation, nay, unconsciously. The individual, as such, is powerless, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the person of the debtor. Distraint on a debtor's corn was forbidden by the Code; not only must the creditor give it back, but his illegal action forfeited his claim altogether. An unwarranted seizure for debt was fined, as was the distraint of a working ox. The debtor being seized for debt could nominate as mancipium or hostage to work off the debt, his wife, a child, or slave. The creditor could only hold a wife or child three years ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... forefinger parallel (as before) to my uncle Toby's—it unavoidably brought the thumb into action—and the forefinger and thumb being once engaged, as naturally brought in the whole hand. Thine, dear uncle Toby! was never now in 'ts right place—Mrs. Wadman had it ever to take up, or, with the gentlest pushings, protrusions, ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... such qualities among the blacks is not only to benefit them, but to benefit the whites among whom they live. I very earnestly hope that the Louisiana Republicans whom I have so consistently favored will not by any action of theirs tend to put me in a false position in such a matter as this. With your entire approval, I have appointed one or two colored men entitled by character and standing to ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... little. I saw the harvest of a small field. The women reaped the Corn, and the men bound up the sheaves. The strokes of the sickle were timed by the modulation of the harvest song, in which all their voices were united. They accompany in the Highlands every action, which can be done in equal time, with an appropriated strain, which has, they say, not much meaning; but its effects are regularity and cheerfulness. The ancient proceleusmatick song, by which the rowers of gallies were animated, may be supposed to have ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... Portuguese Transactions in India, the fleet of the Mahometans and Zamorin on this occasion consisted of 260 paraos, 60 of which exceeded the size of the armed ships then used in India by the Portuguese. The action between the Portuguese and their enemies is there stated ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... endeavored to enlist our sympathies in benevolent purposes. I remember, on one occasion, when I had been teasing sometime for a new tortoise-shell comb to keep back my hair with, it suddenly entered my head that it would be a well-disposed action to ask for some money to give ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... Zad he cast occasional glances in my direction, while she seemed to be urging him very strongly to some action. I paid little attention to it at the time, but the next day I had good reason to recall the circumstances, and at the same time gain a slight insight into the depths of Sarkoja's hatred and the lengths to which she was capable of going to wreak ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... as 'a series of punishments embracing every degree of human suffering, from the lowest, consisting of a slight restraint upon freedom of action, to the highest, consisting of long and tedious torture.' It was with the latter part of the definition in mind that Clarke told his story. He chose to represent servitude in the chain-gangs of Van Diemen's Land and Norfolk ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... the corresponding secretary of the Czar. With becoming humility the secretary announces the tidings to his royal master, who directs him to advise the distant party that his majesty is much pleased, and will avail himself of his earliest leisure to proceed to the scene of action. In the mean time the entire available force of the estate is set to work to watch the bear, and from three to five hundred men, armed with cudgels, tin pans, old kettles, drums, etc., are stationed in a circle around him. Dogs also are employed upon this ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... characteristic. But what quality should be predicated of that Being of which man knew as yet nothing but its existence? Language possessed as yet no auxiliary verbs. The very idea of being without the attributes of quality or action, had never entered into the human mind. How then was that Being to be called which had revealed its existence, and continued to make itself felt by everything that most powerfully impressed the awakening mind, but which as yet was known only like ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... her head on Miriam's shoulder, like a child that would force a caress from the hand that has just been striking it. The action filled Miriam with that kind of self-reproach which the weak creature inspires so easily in the strong. In spite of her knowledge to the contrary, she had the feeling of having ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... very like pain in this, that it is a deterrent thing. It is superficial. Just as a man's skin is infinitely more sensitive than anything inside.... Once you have forced yourself or have been forced through the outward fear into vivid action or experience, you feel very little. The worst moment is before things happen. Rowe, the African sportsman, told me that he had seen cowardice often enough in the presence of lions, but he had never seen any one actually charged by a lion who did not behave well. I have heard the same thing ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... of President Buchanan. The Territorial Legislature was in session when the subject was agitated by the California newspapers. A young statesman of that body, thirsting for fame, rose to his feet and in vociferous tones and with frenzied gestures, denounced this high-handed action of California in changing the name of that Lake without consulting the sister commonwealth of Nevada, as, according to the map, half of that noble sheet of water was in Nevada, and such action would require joint jurisdiction. But his impassioned ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... baleful yew. Some power avert the threatening horrid weight, And, godlike, prop Britannia's sinking state! Minerva, hover o'er young George's soul; May sacred wisdom all his deeds control! Exalted grandeur in each action shine, His conduct all declare the youth divine! Methinks I see him shine a glorious star, Gentle in peace, but terrible in war! Methinks each region does his praise resound, 110 And nations tremble at his name around! ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... analogous to his organization; conformable to his temperament; assimilated to his individual nature:—modified as it is by habit, determined as it is by an infinity of circumstances, it is necessary that the action of the object by which he is moved, or of which the idea remains with him, far from enfeebling him, far from annihilating his feelings, should tend to strengthen him; it is necessary, that without fatiguing his mind, exhausting ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... of twenty and five pounds apiece, so that in a short time by this means the sum of six thousand pounds being gathered, the three ships were bought, the most part whereof they provided to be newly built and trimmed. But in this action, I wot not whether I may more admire the care of the merchants, or the diligence of the shipwrights: for the merchants, they get very strong and well seasoned planks for the building, the shipwrights, they with daily travail ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... in my time; but the good girls have not claimed upon them of a long while,] consanguinity, affinity, or any other lawful cause whatsoever, there be no lawful impediment on this behalf; and that there be not at this time any action, suit, plaint, quarrel, or demand, moved or depending before any judge ecclesiastical or temporal, for or concerning any marriage contracted by or with either of you; and that the said marriage be openly solemnized in the church above-mentioned, between the hours of eight ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... would be much grander work than killing partridges, catching perch, or rowing about our pond in a punt. I do not know that my imaginings and wishes, ardent as they grew, would ever have produced any definite form of action, had not an old schoolfellow of our father's, called Captain Frankland, about a year before the day I speak of, come to our house. As soon as I knew he was coming I was very eager to see him, for I heard our father tell our ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... handkerchief is discomfort. One wishes one could live as a savage,—naked in the heat. One burns with a thirst impossible to assuage—feels a desire for stimulants, a sense of difficulty in breathing, occasional quickenings of the heart's action so violent as to alarm. Then comes at last the absolute dread of physical exertion. Some slight relief might be obtained, no doubt, by resigning oneself forthwith to adopt the gentle indolent manners of ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... mind on the pool, while I, being honorably released from all responsibility, except that of keeping my line taut, could put my whole mind on his performance. There is a little the same sort of pleasure in watching the skillful handling of a rod that there is in watching the bow-action of a violinist. Both things demand the utmost nicety of adjustment: body, arm, wrist, fingers uniting in an interplay of efficiency exactly adapted to the intricately shifting needs ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... time. You know how I love Kate. There isn't any reason why she shouldn't marry me. There's no excuse for her holding me off the way she does. You've got to fix it for me—quick! Understand? This fluff talk about 'devotion' and 'some day' doesn't go. I want action. Now hold on! I don't mean to threaten—I've been square with you till now. Good gad, you don't realize what ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... fell like a powerful explosive. The public were at a loss to fit in Mr. Wilson's unprecedented action with that of his British and French colleagues. For if in the morning he sent his appeal to the newspapers, it was asked, why did he allow his Italian colleagues to go on examining a proposal on which he manifestly assumed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... here that it's time for honest men to carry things with a high hand, so I opine we had better set about it and make a few laws,—an' if you have no objections, I'll lay down a lot o' them slick off—bran' new laws, warranted to work well, and stand wear and tear, and ready greased for action." ...
— Digging for Gold - Adventures in California • R.M. Ballantyne
... thus imbue them with a character of reposing sanctity, existing only in our own spirits? Both solutions are true. The instincts of those creatures we know only in their symptoms and their effects, in the wonderful range of action over which they reign. Of the instincts themselves—as feelings or ideas—we know not anything, nor ever can know; for an impassable gulf separates the nature of those that may be to perish, from ours that ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... with silent breath. They were not ten yards away. Then they saw me and, wheeling around, stopped, the boldest a little in advance of her companion, with the right forefoot raised for action. I made no move. The graceful things eyed me suspiciously for several seconds and then advanced a little in a ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... the reins on the neck of the animal, he sprang upon his back, with the activity of a professor of the equestrian art. Nothing could be finer or firmer than the seat of the savage. The highly wrought and cumbrous saddle was evidently more for show than use. Indeed it impeded rather than aided the action of limbs, which disdained to seek assistance, or admit of restraint from so womanish inventions as stirrups. The horse, which immediately began to prance, was, like its rider, wild and untutored in all his motions, but while there was so ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... government had failed to renew the order of 1807 regarding him. What was a man to do? Should he let him go? What, then, if he were called to account by the Department for violating the order of 1807? Should he keep him? What, then, if Nolan should be liberated some day, and should bring an action of false imprisonment or kidnapping against every man who had had him in charge? I urged and pressed this upon Southard, and I have reason to think that other officers did the same thing. But the Secretary always said, as they so often do at Washington, that there were ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... time put in charge of the small-arm magazine, and whenever the ship was in mock-action—usually on Friday mornings—it was my duty to descend into the magazine, and hook on boxes of ammunition, which were pulled up by marines to the lower deck. Carriers would then run away to the upper deck with them, from which place ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... villages incited the people from the pulpit to boycotting of and war against the Jews. After the sentence in the Beilis action the Polish newspapers were almost alone in publishing on circulars the information that Beilis had been acquitted, but that the existence of religious murder had been satisfactorily proved. Nay, the free thinker, Nemojewski, wrote a book, in which he maintained the monstrous lie that Jewish religious ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... that all professing Christians should be ministers of the word, Hugh. There are many other spheres of action, and many qualifications, varied according to our varied temperaments and positions. The Bible makes that point very clear. ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... life, I have thought the thing out in advance and know what I will do. So when the moment comes, I don't have to stop to work it out then. My decision is already made. I have only to put it into action. It looks like impulsiveness. It is nothing ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... relative worth and dignity. He diffuses a tone and spirit of unity that blends, and (as it were) fuses, each into each, by that synthetic and magical power to which we have exclusively appropriated the name of imagination. This power, first put in action by the will and understanding, and retained under their irremissive, though gentle and unnoticed, control (laxis effertur habenis), reveals itself in the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities: of sameness, with difference; of ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... facts must be taken into the account, if we would read his history fairly. For he composed for himself a plan of living, in which this naturally intense desire for an individual perpetuity and renown, and this love of action and enterprise for its own sake, was sternly subordinated to the noblest ends of living, to the largest good of his kind, to the divine and eternal law of duty, to the relief of man's estate and the Creator's glory. And without making any claim on his ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... soil side by side with the canonized bones of Warren and of Montgomery. To the virtues of Lafayette, a more protracted career and happier earthly destinies were reserved. To the moral principle of political action, the sacrifices of no other man were comparable to his. Youth, health, fortune; the favor of his king; the enjoyment of ease and pleasure; even the choicest blessings of domestic felicity—he gave them all for toil and danger in a distant land, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... earths, as mere weight; to salts and inflammable bodies, as pure force; and finally, to water and air, as the vehicula of the former, or the machines employed by them in their operations—for the purpose of explaining the chemical action and reaction of bodies in accordance with the idea of a mechanism. For, although not actually so expressed, the influence of such ideas of reason is very observable in ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... express their conceptions to the edification of others, in that energy and life, whereby one, as affected himself, declares the truths of God, in a simple, serious, bold, and conscience-touching manner. The difference of this, from human eloquence, loud bawling, and theatrical action, is evident. These may touch the passions, and not affect the conscience: they may procure esteem to the preacher, none to Christ. These are the product of natural art: this the distinguished gift of God, without which, in a certain degree, none ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... found him, however, still strong in his desire for change. The desire was even so far stronger that he now burned to put it into execution; to get away to some fresh sphere of action, and deliberately set himself to obliterate from his memory all past ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... was no more than this summer afternoon; a faint wind stirring the lace collar of Gloria's dress; the slow baking drowsiness of the veranda.... Intolerably unmoved they all seemed, removed from any romantic imminency of action. Even Gloria's beauty needed wild ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... hoping to obtain some counsel from him. But he proved to be a coarse and common-minded man, giving no time or attention to the intricacies of a case, but dashing out a strong opinion involving immediate action. For instance, as soon as I named ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... of censure on the Government for refusing to join in the Berlin Memorandum without making a counter-proposal of their own. It was believed that Mr. Gladstone approved the course indicated, but he was still in retirement, and not only did Lord Granville and Lord Hartington think that any formal action in the House would be impolitic, but many of the 'peace-at-any- price' Radicals, who regarded Lord Derby's extreme policy of non- intervention with favour, refused to support the proposed censure. The resolution accordingly ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... contradiction with the whole of the influences which build up and organise civilisation. A tribe is a small but very closely knit unity, so closely knit that the individual is entirely subordinated to the whole and has little independence of action or even of thought. The tendency of civilisation is to create webs of social organisation which grow ever larger, but at the same time looser, so that the individual gains a continually growing freedom and independence. The tribe becomes ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... to have been Hubert de Dreux. He was a Norman, and many of the attributes of that people were conspicuous in his character. He was of a quick intelligence, and hasty courage, fertile in invention, and prompt in action, eloquent of discourse, and ready of hand; all excellent qualities, to which was superadded an insatiable curiosity. Docile to receive instruction, and apt to profit by it, Hubert became a great favorite with the philosopher, and to him Bacon expounded many of the secrets—or supposed ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... or getting heath for some thatching job that has been offered to him. On these terms, while he finds plenty to do in working intermittently for four or five people in the parish, he preserves a freedom of action which probably no other labourer in the village enjoys. Few others could command it. But Turner's manner is so ingratiating that people have a personal liking for him, and it is certain that his strength and all-round handiness make of him an extremely useful man. Especially does ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... As there are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write, so the heart is a secret even to him (or her) who has it in his own breast. Who hath not found himself surprised into revenge, or action, or passion, for good or evil, whereof the seeds lay within him, latent and unsuspected, until the occasion called them forth? With the death of her lord, a change seemed to come over the whole conduct and mind of Lady Castlewood; ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... facsimile of the Flag Staff Truck of l'Orient, which was fished up by Sir Samuel Hood, the day following the battle of the Nile, and presented by him to Lord Nelson; the same being deposited at Mitford, as a trophy of that ever-memorable action. This group is surmounted upon a pedestal of statuary marble; a circular form having been selected, as best adapted to the situation. To personify that affectionate regard which caused the present patriotic tribute to be raised, the ...
— A Description of Modern Birmingham • Charles Pye
... upright for a breath, and her keen, little black eyes noticed an involuntary tremble, a pause, an uncertainty at a critical moment in the doctor's tense arm. A wilful current of thought had disturbed his action. The sharp head nurse wondered if Dr. Sommers had had any wine that evening, but she dismissed this suspicion scornfully, as slander against the ornament of the Surgical Ward of St. Isidore's. He was tired: the languid ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... announcing upon whom the successorship had fallen, and was surrounded as soon as he appeared. Keeping silence, and turning his eyes on all sides, he fixed them for a moment on Blecourt, then looked in another direction, as if seeking some one else. Blecourt interpreted this action as a bad omen. The Duc d'Abrantes feigning at last to discover the Count d'Harrach, assumed a gratified look, flew to him, embraced him, and said aloud in Spanish, "Sir, it is with much pleasure;" then pausing, as though to embrace him better, he added: "Yes, sir, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... There are good and, it is believed, satisfactory reasons for concluding that these symbols are intended to denote the action of whirling a stick to produce fire or rolling a pestle in grinding paint. The first, marked a, is found only on Plate XIX of the Manuscript Troano, and the second, on Plates 5 and 6 ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... opposed to his tastes and habits, Gustave signalised himself as one of the loudest declaimers against the imbecility of the Government, and in the demand for immediate and energetic action, no matter at what loss of life, on the part of all—except the heroic force to which he himself was attached. Still, despite his military labours, Gustave found leisure to contribute to Red journals, and his contributions paid him tolerably well. To do him justice, his parents concealed ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... their most brilliant manner, and armed with a sort of cleaver, with a handle in the centre, more or less ornamented, according to the person's rank. They place themselves round a kind of trough containing the cabbages. The old women give the signal for action; two of the youngest girls take their places in the middle of the room, and begin to dance a kind of allemande, while the rest of the women sing national songs, and keep time in driving their knives into the trough. When the girls are tired with dancing, two more take ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... a love story, simple, tender and pretty as one would care to read. The action throughout is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is apparent at once, are as true to life as though the author had known them all personally. Simple in all its situations, the story is worked up in that touching and quaint strain which never grows wearisome, no matter how often ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... table. 'We happened last night to compare notes about our travels, and I had the information I have given you from Sparkler himself.' Here he ceased; continuing to eye Miss Fanny through his glass, with a face much twisted, and not ornamentally so, in part by the action of keeping his glass in his eye, and in part by the great subtlety of his smile. 'Under these circumstances,' said Mr Dorrit, 'I believe I express the sentiments of—ha—Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... no idea that either he or any of his men would escape; only fifteen or sixteen men against over three hundred merciless savages, and those the worst on the continent, and a small corral—the chances were totally hopeless! Nothing but a desperate action could avail, and maybe not even that.[67] Hatcher, after the other head men had finished eating, asked the old chief to send his young warriors away over the hill. They were all sitting close to one of the wagons, Old Wolf, in fact, leaning ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... simple process of the law, and in his manner on the day of the rescue there had been much respect, and in spite of the mocking levity with which he had met her reproaches she felt that he felt some slight remorse over his action. ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... be mentioned that the air and hydrogen are not subject in the same way to changes of temperature. Important variations in lift may occur when the temperature of the gas inside the envelope becomes higher, owing to the action of the sun, than the air which surrounds it. A difference of some 20 degrees Fahrenheit may result between the gas and the air temperatures; this renders it highly necessary that the pilot should by able to tell at any moment the relative temperatures of gas and air, ...
— British Airships, Past, Present, and Future • George Whale
... the first years of the eighteenth century. The advertisement alluded to runs, "Lately come from London, a parcel of very fine clocks—they go a week and repeat the hour when pulled" (a string caused the same action as the pressing of the handle of a repeating watch) "in Japan cases ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... be produc'd; wherein that has been the Chief, if not the only Defect. The French, indeed, tho' a Nation of great Levity, can attentively listen to long declamatory Speeches, when an English Audience wou'd fall asleep; who love Action and Bus'ness, love Plot and Design; Variety of Incidents is their Delight, but yet that Plot must be founded on Reason and Probability, and conduce to the Main Action of the Drama. It is the Advice of a celebrated Author, Habitum hujus Temporis habe; the Taste of the Town, you know, ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... even claim to have been a man of action in the sense in which Carlyle was in England, or Emerson in America. They were men who in their books were constantly teaching and preaching. "Do this!" they said; "Do not do that!" The Jewish prophets did much the same, and ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... it this morning. Only think how rejoiced the poor boy must be, to have so much money; I dare say he never before, possessed so large a sum, but Edward, we shall have no new kite nor marbles now!—Never mind, brother, we have done a good action, and that, you know, our father says is the surest ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... very man for such a conjuncture. He had committed great faults; he had kept careless guard; he had trusted implicitly to information which had proved false; he had neglected information which had proved true; one of his divisions was flying in confusion; the other divisions were unprepared for action. That crisis would have paralysed the faculties of an ordinary captain; it only braced and stimulated those of Luxemburg. His mind, nay his sickly and distorted body, seemed to derive health and vigour from disaster and dismay. In a ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your inherited money because when you were in the Confederate army you were a coward in some action and could not ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... he uses a great deal of gesture, suiting the action to the word. His hands, which are small and well formed, are black with dirt; he does not descend to the duties ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... of a leaf, or quick shadow near the ground that should point her out as she skulked to her nest. I had already observed that whenever she uttered her squawks he instantly burst into energetic shouts and calls. I believed it a concerted action, with the intent of drawing my ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... that dreaming. And as pressing, rubbing, or striking the Eye, makes us fancy a light; and pressing the Eare, produceth a dinne; so do the bodies also we see, or hear, produce the same by their strong, though unobserved action, For if those Colours, and Sounds, were in the Bodies, or Objects that cause them, they could not bee severed from them, as by glasses, and in Ecchoes by reflection, wee see they are; where we know the thing we see, is in one place; the apparence, in another. And though ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... most unusual record, as every sportsman will recognize. The bullets seemed on impact always to flatten slightly at the base, the point remaining intact-to spin widely on the axis, and to plunge off at an angle. This action of course depended on the high velocity. The requisite velocity, however seemed to keep up within all shooting ranges. A kongoni I killed at 638 paces (measured), and another at 566 paces both exhibited this action of the bullet. I mention these ranges because I have seen the statement in print ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... the heated substratum of the lake, and the latter, after a long resistance, suddenly finding vent for its escape, had been obliged to let in the cataract from above. As in all extraordinary efforts, whether physical or moral, reaction would seem to be a consequence of excessive action, the currents of air, pushed beyond their proper limits, were now setting back again, like a tide on its reflux. This cause produced the northern ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... for keeping down Wildeve's inclination to rove in the evening. He had nipped in the bud the possible meeting between Eustacia and her old lover this very night. But he had not anticipated that the tendency of his action would be to divert Wildeve's movement rather than to stop it. The gambling with the guineas had not conduced to make him a welcome guest to Clym; but to call upon his wife's relative was natural, and he was determined to see Eustacia. It was necessary to choose ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... that the color will not fade when exposed to light and atmospheric conditions; to another that it is not impoverished by washing with soap and water; to a third it may indicate that the color will withstand the action of certain manufacturing operations, such as scouring, milling, stoving, etc.; while a fourth person might be so exacting as to demand that a fast color should resist all the varied influences ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... curl of Ferrand's lip as he watched this sight. "Many thanks, gentlemen," it seemed to say; "in that charming little action you have shown me all ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... shoulder, and Magdalen receiving the dead body of the Saviour in her arms. Never was the grand tragedy represented in so profound and dramatic a manner. For it is not only in his color in which this man so easily surpasses all the world, but in his life-like, flesh-and-blood action,—the tragic power of his composition. And is it not appalling to think of the 'large constitution of this man,' when you reflect on the acres of canvas which he has covered? How inspiriting to see with what muscular, masculine vigor this splendid Fleming rushed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... individually—his eyes, his mouth, his chin, and the meaning they conveyed, his manner with its mixture of friendliness and reserve, she mechanically rubbed her forehead with her finger tips as though the action might assist in catching some elusive memory that was just beyond her reach. Her brows knit in perplexity ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... distinguishing Perfections, or, if I may be allowed to call them so, the Specifick Qualities of the Author whom he peruses; whether he is particularly pleased with Livy for his Manner of telling a Story, with Sallust for his entering into those internal Principles of Action which arise from the Characters and Manners of the Persons he describes, or with Tacitus for his displaying those outward Motives of Safety and Interest, which give Birth to the whole Series of Transactions which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... into Mrs. Maxa's face. The latter nodded, as it was too late now to explain to Leonore what action would have been better. She made up her mind to do it afterwards for similar occasions. With many words the poor woman thanked her for the gift. She was very anxious to kiss the young lady's hand for the two garments, but Leonore had immediately run away. Mea followed and found ...
— Maezli - A Story of the Swiss Valleys • Johanna Spyri
... for the same reason. Nafzawi, indeed, is the very antithesis of the English Sir Thomas Browne, with his well-known passage in the Religio Medici, [575] commencing "I could be content that we might procreate like trees." Holding that no natural action of a man is more degrading than another, Nafzawi could never think of amatory pleasures without ejaculating "Glory be to God," or some such phrase. But "Moslems," says Burton, "who do their best to countermine the ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright |
